


ti sento

by ataxophilia



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Normal Life, Classical Music, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-17 07:26:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4657797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ataxophilia/pseuds/ataxophilia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He flips it open and finds not a complaint, but a request -- 'A most humble request', according to the scrawled message, and, underneath, 'Nel cor più non mi sento'.</p><p>Someone leaves Arthur an anonymous request during his daily practice. Arthur plays along. It becomes a thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ti sento

**Author's Note:**

> Completely inspired by a lovely post on tumblr (http://actualmodel.tumblr.com/post/126244502008/one-of-my-neighbours-slipped-this-under-my-door) and then requested by the ever wonderful, ever enabling Hailey.
> 
> I literally smashed this out in the last three hours, and it's currently 3am, so please forgive me any mistakes. It's unbeta'd for now. Sorry.
> 
> And I am not a violinist. If any of these songs are implausible for Arthur to play, I plead artistic licence. Again, sorry.

 

The first time it happens, it’s a May afternoon, the weather just creeping into warmth, and Arthur’s just finished the first movement of his favourite Mendelssohn concerto. He’s enjoying the breathless, hanging silence that always blooms at the end of a piece -- that particular silence has always been one of his favourite things about playing the violin -- when his doorbell rings.

The sound is almost jarring after the elegance of the Mendelssohn. He’s been meaning to get the bell, with its brassy  _dong_ , replaced since he first heard it, but it’s one of those things that’ll probably never quite happen. 

(He’s almost used to it now, anyway, which he takes as another sign of his adaptability, for all his sister claims it’s his stubborn nature coming through again.)

He drops his violin from his chin with a slight sigh. It’s been two months since he moved into the building, bringing his daily practices with him, and none of his neighbours have complained yet. Part of him has been waiting for the other shoe to drop; everywhere he’s lived since the childhood home where he discovered the violin he’s had complaints about the sound. He considers them part of the package, now: the cuts from snapped strings, the ache in his jaw, and the angry notes taped to his door, asking if he could please take an evening off every so often. 

And, indeed, when he pulls his door open he’s greeted by the usual sheepishly empty corridor, and the usual torn-out piece of paper stuck on his door. 

Ridiculously, Arthur feels the corners of his mouth turn down as he pulls the paper off the door, only to stretch back out into a smile when he flips it open and finds not a complaint, but a request --  _A most humble request_ , according to the scrawled message, and, underneath,  _Nel cor più non mi sento_.

Arthur glances up into the hallway again, in case his mysterious audience has decided to reveal themselves now he’s read the note, but it’s still empty. He raises an eyebrow, folds the note neatly back in half, and slips back into his apartment, shutting the door behind him. 

For a moment he considers ignoring the note -- the Mendelssohn was the last of the pieces he’d intended to play through tonight, and he’s always wary of playing for too long and annoying his neighbours, complaint-less though they remain -- but the performer in him wins out. And it’s been a while since he last played any Paganini. It wouldn’t hurt him to make sure he’s not too rusty on the song. 

He pauses briefly to throw the window in his messy living room turned practice room open as wide as it can go, to make sure his request-making neighbour can hear him, and then he picks the right sheets out and begins to play, losing himself in the familiar dips and soars of the piece. 

It’s not until he’s finished that he realises there’s applause coming from somewhere above him.

 

* * *

 

Six days later, Arthur arrives home from a brutal day at the office to find another note taped up just below his door number. He’s exhausted, and his finger ache from hours of furious typing, but when he gets inside and opens the note to find,  _Thursday was an honour_ , written out in the same messy script, with,  _Tchaikovsky’s D major, if I could be so bold_ , under it, his hand goes automatically to his violin case. Some of his snobbier classmate had teased him for the obviousness of it, back at college, but Arthur has always loved Tchaikovsky’s compositions. They’re some of the world’s most famous pieces for a reason: strong, compelling pieces, beautiful in the right hands -- and Arthur’s, thanks to a lifetime of work, are the right hands. 

The sheet music for the concerto in D major is one of Arthur’s oldest, bought from a tiny shop in his hometown when he was a teenager. There are sections he knows almost by heart, he’s played them so many times. 

(He can’t help but feel a tiny thrill at the idea of his audience-of-one having such similar taste to him.) 

He slides his way through some arpeggios to warm up and make a few minor adjustments to his tuning, and then he’s away, the song coming to life in his hands, drowning out the traffic outside and the pain in his lower back from sitting in his cheap office chair all day and even the mystery of who’s leaving the notes. As always, when Arthur plays, the world narrows down to him and his violin. 

This time the applause is loud enough that Arthur notices it while the song is winding down, even though he forgot to open the window this time. His cheek flush ever so slightly, and he smiles as best he can with his violin still in place under his chin and his attention still on the piece. 

When he opens his door later that night to put out his trash, there’s another note stuck up. 

It says,  _Exquisite_ , and nothing more.

Arthur tapes it to the side of the bookcase holding his music and refuses to second-guess the decision.

 

* * *

 

Arthur’s building is by no means a large one. The apartments are on the more expensive side -- the nicest that Arthur has lived in since he moved out of his parents’ place -- but there are only three others in the building. 

On the floor above Arthur there are two apartments, one identical to and directly above Arthur’s flat and the other slightly smaller, over the laundry room next to Arthur’s flat. The smaller one belongs to a tiny hipster girl who wears a lot of scarves and hauls a huge bass clarinet case around half the times she leaves her flat. 

Arthur figures she could be his mysterious note-leaving neighbour. She’s clearly musical, and she’s caught him with his violin a few times, striking up a conversation about playing each time. It wouldn’t be a massive leap for her to start taping requests to Arthur’s door, but from Arthur’s admittedly limited experience she seems more likely to just outright ask him next time she sees him with his case. 

If pushed, Arthur would put his money on her neighbours, the couple above Arthur. The husband is lost in his own head more often than not, but the wife, Mal, a beautiful Frenchwoman, is exactly the sort who would love the drama and intrigue of leaving anonymous requests for the violin-playing boy in the apartment downstairs. Arthur can easily picture her telling her friends, who in his mind as equally glamourous Frenchwomen, always, for some reason, wearing opera gowns, the whole story, much to all of their delights. 

Also, she’s taken to kissing Arthur’s cheeks and thanking him profusely for little things like holding the door open for her. 

Arthur very decidedly does not think it could be the man living in the fourth apartment, on the very top floor of the building.

It’s incredibly stereotypical of him, but then despite his best efforts Arthur remains a fairly judgmental person. And in this, at least, he feels he is justified; the man on the top floor is built like he spends every evening in the gym, the kind of carefully maintained bulk that Arthur hates himself for finding attractive. He wears hideous paisley shirts open at the collar to reveal the edges of heavy tattoos. He plays his music far too loud, so Arthur knows he listens to top 40 hits and bassy rap, not classical string concertos. 

The most they’ve ever interacted is Arthur subtly checking out his arms when he rolls his sleeves up, and him very unsubtly checking out Arthur’s arse when Arthur’s in his best suits for concert nights. 

So, Arthur thinks, no one could ever blame him for assuming it’s the lovely, French Mal leaving him requests, when Mr. Paisley from the top floor is his only other real option. 

 

* * *

 

The next request comes on a Saturday. 

Arthur passes Mr. Paisley by the front door to the building. He can see the note on his door over Paisley’s (predictably paisley-clad) shoulder and almost considers ignoring the way Mr. Paisley is trying to get his attention so he can see what his anonymous audience has asked for this time, but his mother raised him better than that, so he stops and turns to face Mr. Paisley.

“--don’t think we’ve been properly introduced,” Paisley is saying, holding his hand out to Arthur. There’s a bass clef tattooed on the inside of Mr. Paisley’s wrist. Arthur files that knowledge away as he close his hand around Paisley’s and shakes it.

“I’m Arthur,” he says, his best office smile slipping into place. “I live, um, just here,” he adds, automatically, wincing internally at how awkward he sounds. 

Paisley just grins right back at him. “Eames,” he replies. “I live on the top floor.”

Arthur keeps smiling woodenly, casting around for something to say. He’s never been good with meeting new people. Put him on a stage with a solo in front of a full auditorium and he’s fine, but shaking hands with a good looking stranger is beyond him.

Thankfully, Eames saves him from making more of a fool of himself. “Look, I’ve got to go,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “I just wanted to say -- you’re really good on that violin. That Chopin piece the other night was amazing.”

He’s gone before Arthur can manage anything other than an automatic thank you, leaving Arthur staring blankly after him until he gathers his senses and turns back to his own door and the note waiting for him.

 _A weekend like this deserves some Prokofiev, no?_ , it says.  _Perhaps his 2nd concerto?_

Arthur waits until he hears Eames come home, voice loud in the hallway outside Arthur’s door, before pulling out his violin and his Prokofiev sheets, and refuses to think about why.

 

* * *

 

The tiny hipster girl from the first floor -- or Ariadne, as Arthur now knows -- is waiting by his door the next time he gets a note.

“I didn’t realise you took requests,” she says as Arthur walks up, holding the folded paper out to him.

“And I didn’t realise we were reading each other’s mail,” he quips back, opening to note to check which piece he’ll be playing today.

 _Sibelius’ D minor_ , according to the note. Arthur smiles down at the scribble, a smiley face and a rough violin drawn next to them. 

“Does it really count as mail when it’s taped to your front door?” Ariande asks, and then, before Arthur can retort, she continues, “I can’t decide whether it’s cute or creepy that someone’s leaving you songs.” 

Arthur rolls his eyes. “It’s not creepy,” he says. Ariadne’s face lights up in glee, so he adds, “It’s not cute, either. It’s just song requests.”

“Nobody leaves requests stuck to my door,” she points out, and Arthur laughs.

“That’s because nobody knows any bass clarinet solos.” 

Ariadne punches him hard, on the hip instead of the arm out of respect for his playing, and pulls an over-the-top face at him. “Typical violin snob,” she sniffs. “Go play your Sibelius for your creepy note-leaver.” 

“Don’t be too jealous,” Arthur calls after her as she walks away, laughing again when she turns to stick her middle fingers up at him.

He sticks the note with its doodles up with the other one on his music shelves and sets to work finding his Sibelius music.

 

* * *

 

Three days later, he’s in the middle of Saint-Saens’ Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso when his doorbell goes off again. He’s close enough to the door this time -- experimenting with the acoustics of the flat again -- that he can drop out of the song and pull the door open right away.

“Oh,” Eames says, on the other side of it, a blush rising red and furious on his cheeks. 

Arthur glances at the front of his door automatically, sees the new note, looks back at Eames, watches his blush darken, and finally puts all the numbers together.

“Oh,” he says, blinking.

They both stare blankly at each other for a beat, until Arthur says, “I didn’t think,” and Eames says, “I was gonna tell you,” at the same time. 

Eames goes even darker, so Arthur takes pity on him and finishes. “I didn’t think it was you.”

Eames shrugs, scratches the back of his ear. “I honestly was gonna tell you,” he says again. “I just-- I thought you might stop, if you knew.”

Arthur blinks at him again. “Why would I stop?” he asks.

“I’m, um.” Eames gestures sheepishly at himself, says, “I’m not exactly the classical music type,” and Arthur realises he’s completely misinterpreted Arthur’s question. 

“No,” Arthur says, shaking his head, “I mean, I wouldn’t stop. I like the requests. They’re, um. They’re the best part of my week.”

“Oh.” Eames scratches his ear again, then takes a deep breath and nods to the new note. “That’s a Dvorak. Um, the American Suite. It’s one of my favourites.”

“Right,” Arthur says. “I’ve got that one somewhere, I think. I, um, I played it last year, with my orchestra.”

“I know.” Eames’ blush, which had been fading, comes back in full force. “I mean, I remember. I saw you, playing it.”

“You remember?” It’s Arthur’s turn to flush. He’s been playing in fairly well known orchestras for a few years now, but he’s never really made a name for himself. He’s never minded -- it was never his intention to become a famous concert violinist -- but it does mean he’s never really expected to be recognised by anyone outside his circles. 

Eames laughs nervously. “You were really good,” he says. “I looked you up a few times, watched your stuff on youtube. I was dead excited when you moved in.” He looks across at the note and then back to Arthur, grinning crookedly. “Took me a while to work up the nerve to ask for a request.”

“I’ve never had a fan before,” is all Arthur can say, shaking his head. “I’m not sure I like it.” Eames’ face falls, briefly, but Arthur adds, “Do you, um. Do you want to come in?” before he can leave. “I think I’d rather get requests from a friend.”

Eames bites down on his lower lip like he’s trying to hold back a smile. “Does this mean you’ll play the Dvorak again?” he asks. Arthur grins back at him, grabbing the note before stepping back so Eames can enter past him.

“Just let me find the music,” he says, and Eames’ whole face crumples into a beam.

 

* * *

 

The Saturday after that, Arthur’s phone buzzes while he’s leafing through his music for something to end his practice with. 

 _What about Monti’s Czardas?_ , the messages says, and Arthur grins.

 _Perfect_ , he texts back.  _You coming down?_

Eames’ reply comes through instantly:  _Of course_.

**Author's Note:**

> All the songs come from two wonderful 8track playlists, which I listened through while I was writing this and am incredibly grateful for: http://8tracks.com/katheleenchoi/grace-in-strings and http://8tracks.com/plagunae/da-solo


End file.
